These Uncertain Times

He should be celebrating. In just a month he'd be graduating from medical school...a full-fledged doctor ready to start his internship. All that was left for him were a few exams, a paper and, a couple of labs to complete. Nothing he couldn't handle. He should be skating through- he wasn't.

No. Connor Rhodes was in bittersweet misery as he sat in the stands of an empty soccer pitch because five hours ago his girlfriend of the past two years had just broken up with him... and he didn't know why.

He swallowed tightly, fingers gripping and releasing the box he had been carrying around in his pocket for the last two months as he tried to make sense... of everything. They were happy. They were good. She made him crazy in all the best ways. What changed? Sure, they had been fighting a little more lately... but – that couldn't be it.

His brow furrowed as he tried vainly to keep the sting of tears at bay.

"I love you, but I can't be with you." He murmured her words aloud in quiet despair.

What did that mean?

Bewildered anger ate away at his heart and his hand tightened over the box. This couldn't be it. This couldn't be the way they ended – he refused. He had planned to spend the rest of his life with her, and he wasn't going to give up on that dream without an explanation. Resolve steeling his veins, he forced himself up and marched from the pit.

It had grown late, and he doubted very much that his girlfriend would be anywhere other than her apartment. It felt like he had made record time getting to her place from the campus. Admittedly, he had been so lost in his thoughts that he didn't really remember much of the trip to the three-story building. Doors were left open to facilitate a cross breeze – the air had begun to turn stickier as summer approached. Her door was no different as he ambled down the walkway.

"Sarah... I can't believe you're doing this. I feel like I should be going with you."

Connor paused as he heard her roommate's voice filter out of the window that he was near. Shuffling sounds reached his ears and the familiar zoom of a zipper being tugged into place seemed to echo. He slipped inside without announcing his presence.

"Or that Connor should be going with you. Can't believe you broke up with him."

"Stop, Alex." Sarah murmured wearily, "Just stop. After tomorrow he won't want anything to do with me anyway."

Connor frowned churlishly as her words rang down the hallway. Pursing his lips, he stepped into the light of her bedroom, "And why's that?"

The girls froze.

Alex looked awkwardly between him and Sarah's stiff back. She hadn't turned at the sound of his voice but kept her attention on the duffle bag before her. As the tension in the air rocketed up Alex murmured an uncomfortable greeting to Connor before making her excuses to leave. She slipped past him and seconds later the door to her bedroom was clicking shut.

"Sarah?" He pressed.

"You shouldn't be here, Connor," She whispered.

"And yet, Sarah, I am. So, what the hell is going on?" Connor bit out, casually leaning against the threshold, blocking her only exit, "Where are you going?"

Sarah kept her back to him and finished stuffing her clothes into her bag, "Doesn't matter. You should go. I-I'd like you to go."

Her voice broke on that last word, and he found his feet turning into cement. She'd need a damn sledgehammer to budge him now, "And I'd like an explanation. Sarah, look at me."

She shook her head, tugging the zipper back to where it belonged, "We broke up. Why are you even here?"

Connor huffed, growing impatient with her stalling. He stepped forward and shut her door with a resounding thunk behind him as he trekked to her side. She bent her head forward before he could glimpse her face, hiding behind a thick curtain of curly hair.

He tilted his head, growling slightly when she refused to look at him, "I'm here because my girlfriend has lost her mind if she thinks that I'm going to just accept that we're done. I love you, but I can't be with you? What utter bullshit is going on in your head?"

"Ex-girlfriend." She corrected hoarsely, drawing a long breath before flipping her head back to glare at him, "Ex. Please leave."

He was struck for a moment by the obvious tear tracks that stained her usually smooth cheeks. Sarah's brown eyes were rimmed red, and he knew she had been crying all day – hell he probably looked similar.

Still...

"No. No. Not until we talk about this, and you tell me what is going on."

When she refused to speak, Connor bit back a curse. He wanted more than anything to shake answers out of her, but he knew Sarah –knew her better than he did himself sometimes and when she dug her heels in... God.

Well, he could be stubborn too. He licked his lips and reached around her to grab her bag. Sarah started in surprise before reaching to yank it from him, but he was quicker. He tossed it back amongst the pillows on her bed before flipping his body to lean up against it.

"Connor!" Sarah snapped, exasperated, "You can't just barge in here and -"

"And what? Demand answers that I'm very clearly owed." He broke in as he felt her waver, speaking far more calmly than he felt as he watched her bristle, "Talk to me, Sarah. Tell me what is going on and maybe- maybe I will leave you alone. You can start with where the hell are you going?"

Sure, it was Friday and she didn't have a class again until Tuesday, but they had a month left on the semester and Sarah was in her second year of medical school. Finals were starting the week after next, he half expected to find her with her nose buried in a textbook or curled up on her bed with a box of tissues and her comfort movie playing on her laptop. Not packing to go to who knows where.

"She's going to Mexico City."

Alex's muffled voice came filtering through the walls.

Sarah panned a glare to her door, "Shut up, Alex!"

If anything, the additional information only confused Connor further, "Mexico City? What the hell is in Mexico City?"

It was a seven-hour drive from Guadalajara. Doable in a day and also the last place he had expected his girlfriend to be going. And what the fuck did going to Mexico City have to do with making him not want anything to do with her?

"Nothing." Sarah murmured staunchly, "I just need to get away."

"To Mexico City?" He intoned dubiously. There were far better places in Mexico to get away to than its capital. There were a few seaside towns that she loved more than anything. She would go to those towns first – not to mention they were a hell of a lot closer, "Try again. And maybe, try telling me why you going to Mexico City would upset me so much that I wouldn't...would.."

He trailed off slowly. His mind whirling as a stray thought niggled at him. His eyes bore in hers as silent tears began to streak down Sarah's cheeks. It wasn't the sight of her distress, but a sparse bit of trivia about Mexico City that suddenly popped into his head. It made his blood run cold and he hoped like hell that he was wrong, but the utter terror that lurked in Sarah's eyes told him he wasn't.

"Sarah...Are - are you pregnant?" He choked the question out, wanting more than anything for her to say no because, otherwise, that meant that she was going to the closest place that would legally make her not pregnant.

She didn't. Her arms crossed in a protective hug across her chest, and she murmured weakly, "You should go."

Connor swore the floor fell out from underneath him as for the second time that day the woman before him flipped his world on its axis. His mouth thinned into a straight line, as he stared dazedly at her, "You're going to get rid of our baby? My baby?"

Sarah flinched as if his words were physical knives thrown into her body. She couldn't have this conversation with him. Desperate to get away, she turned on her heel and headed for the door. Her hand didn't even touch the knob before Connor was there. He pressed against her back, his arm shooting out to keep the door shut.

"Don't you dare." His voice was a ragged whisper in her hair that contained so much emotion, so much anger that it only made Sarah cry harder as she stared at the door, "Don't you dare run from this – from me. We're talking about this."

She shook her head, unable to get words out, but Connor refused to relent. He snaked his arm down and turned her to face him. His sapphire eyes glimmered darkly as he regarded her despair – her fear. It made him ache because he wasn't sure if she feared the situation or him. The thought of either was near unbearable. His fingers smoothed over the cotton of her shirt to her flat belly.

Their baby was in there.

He felt his own fear crush upon him like a tidal wave, but he swallowed it back.

It was too soon. She wasn't supposed to be pregnant yet. He was supposed to propose, and they'd get married and she'd finish med school and they'd find a hospital to work at together and once they were settled... then they'd talk about kids. Even as Connor thought it, he knew the last bit would have been unlikely – Sarah had always been pretty clear on her stance with motherhood for herself. She wasn't a fan.

"How long? - How far?" He mumbled, not able to move his hand away as he met her watery gaze.

Sarah shook her head a faint whisper leaving her lips, "Not long. Maybe seven weeks."

"When? When did you find out?" Connor pushed.

"A few days ago." She answered hesitantly, wiping vainly at her eyes but the tears wouldn't stop, "Went to the school med center because I wasn't feeling well. They automatically do a pregnancy test. Came back positive."

An odd strand of betrayal curled in Connor's stomach as he fought to stay calm, "Why didn't you come to me?"

His question provoked a weary huff as Sarah glared at him balefully, "Connor, come on."

"Come on, what? You didn't think I would want to know? That I wouldn't want to be a part of this decision?" He demanded, feeling his control begin to slip as his voice raised like a breaking wave.

Yet, his frustration only furthered Sarah's. Her fingers latched over his on her belly, pushing him away while at the same time she gripped him so tightly, "Connor, I know you. Not keeping the baby would have never crossed your mind. What I'm going to do... I didn't want you to carry this. I didn't want you to have to deal with that what if -"

"You don't get to make that choice for me!" Connor spat, enraged to the point that his body began to physically shake. He clenched his jaw so hard he swore a tooth cracked, "You don't get to just decide what happens. This affects me just as much as it affects you."

Her responding scoff made him see red, but her next words speared his gut with a frozen dagger, "You're leaving in two months, Connor. You can leave. I don't have that luxury. I still have two years of school left. I can't do that and carry and raise a baby. I can't afford to do that, even if I wanted to. So don't tell me that this affects you just as much as it does me."

"Then come with me. There are med schools in Washington too." He countered swiftly.

And she stared at him like he was speaking another language, "Are you kidding me right now? Let's run through this scenario. I go with you. You start your residency, but you won't be home much because that requires a ridiculous amount of time to accomplish. So, I'll be alone. No friends. No family. Growing a child that I'm ninety percent sure will be neglected by one or, more horrifyingly, both of us because I don't have a maternal bone in my body, and you'll never be there. Then I'm what? Applying to schools and hoping that the year –and I can only hope that it's a year - that I take off from school won't set me too far behind and that's if I get accepted – that's if I can even pay for it because let's face it kids aren't cheap. And that's the best-case scenario that I can think of. The worst case is that I grow to resent you and resent this child and I walk away like my father did to me and my mom."

She choked on a sob as she got to the end of her tirade and it took everything in Connor not to yank her into his arms and tell her it was going to be okay because nothing was okay. He hated that there wasn't much about her argument that wasn't wrong... except for one thing. Sarah didn't know about his family, didn't know that he had access to a trust fund that held millions of dollars. He only touched it when he needed to, and he didn't often need to.

He rubbed wearily at his face, "Money won't be an issue. I have money."

"We're going to need more than a couple of thousand dollars to raise a kid," Sarah murmured.

"Yeah, I have more than that." Connor stated waspishly, "A lot more. If there's one thing that we won't need to worry about then it's money."

She could only stare at him for a minute before shaking her head, "I can't even get into that right now. You have a full career you're about to start. A child doesn't fit into that yet. And I'm not ready to be a mom... I don't think I ever will be."

"Then I won't go. I can match again in a year." He offered hastily, "I can stay home. Take care of the baby while you go to school."

Sarah wanted to scream.

She wanted him to hear her – really hear her because she couldn't do this. She just couldn't. Because having a baby was more than enduring months of weight gain and potentially contracting diabetes or suffering from preeclampsia. It was more than fearing she would even survive the process of giving birth because despite it being the modern-day, complications still happened. Maternal mortality was a very real thing. And if she did manage to survive and the baby managed to survive, how she would handle those first few months.

Would she have a mild case of the baby blues, or would she find herself cascading down into full-blown postpartum depression? Would Connor suffer from a form of it himself? Would her baby even respond to her? Could she live with the constant fear of failing this little person she created because she didn't know what the hell she was doing? The pressure of keeping him or her safe – even from herself. Would she end up like her mother or her father? She wasn't naturally an affectionate person. Would she even love her baby? Despite Connor wanting to be there, she had to wonder if she really would have a partner because his first instinct, like hers, wasn't to give up his job and stay home. She didn't want him to do that anyway.

It was too much – so much to handle and already it was crushing her.

"Connor..." Such sadness coated her tone that he knew what she was going to say before she even had a chance to speak.

"No. No." Connor begged, shaking his head. His eyes stung as he felt a feeble weight weaken his limbs, "Baby, please. Please, just talk to me. We can figure this out. I refuse. I refuse to lose you. I love you. I love you so much. This cannot - will not break us. Please just talk to me."

Slowly, so slowly, Sarah bent. Arguments spun them around in circles until neither knew up from down, but Connor was determined, and she was stubborn and so they fought and cried. Cursed each other and pleaded until exhaustion claimed what was left of their energy and they fell into a restless slumber.

It wasn't until the resounding scream of a car alarm going off the next morning that Connor roused.

He grunted, not sure where he was for a moment until the previous night came flooding back. He shot up in bed because the familiar weight of his girlfriend was gone from his side. The sheets had grown cold with her absence. Wildly, he spilled over the side of her bed looking for the bag that he had kept from her, only to find it missing.

"No." He whispered, scrambling for her door, "Sarah!"

No response. His heart thumped frantically as he searched for her, but he knew it was futile.

"She's scared." He whirled to find Alexandra standing awkwardly in her doorway.

"Alex, where exactly is she heading?" Connor demanded as he resisted the urge to hover over her.

Alex bit her lip as she gazed into his pleading eyes, "Do you really want this baby?"

He could only shrug, "I want her. Baby or not. She's not doing this without me."

There was a long minute as Alex studied him and he somehow knew that Sarah had made her promise not to say anything...

"Alex..." He quietly beseeched.

She huffed looking away, "She's not driving. She went to the airport. Her flight's in forty minutes. If you hurry, you might catch her."

Connor was already out the door as he shouted his thank you back to her. He pulled his phone to his ear as he called the airline to buy a ticket to Mexico City. If he didn't catch her at the airport, then he wouldn't be far behind her.

It was a miracle that he arrived at the airport without getting stopped by the police. God, it was a miracle he got there in one piece and hadn't killed anyone. He had no idea his jeep could go maneuver down alleys and side streets that well. He made the half-hour journey in fifteen minutes but getting his ticket and getting through security took another twenty. He barreled down the pathway for her gate, praying that he'd make it in time. Praying that her flight was delayed. Flights were always delayed, weren't they?

It wasn't and he didn't.

The plane was already pulling away from the gate by the time he hit the waiting area. He slammed his hand against the glass as he watched the aircraft roll out of sight. Defeat momentarily subdued him – there had to be another flight going out soon. In his frustration, he slammed his hand one more time against the cold pane.

"You're gonna break it if you keep doing that." A voice rough from crying said behind him.

Connor's heart leapt as he whirled to find Sarah sitting in the waiting area of the gate to his left. Her eyes were puffy from fresh tears, but she was here. She was here.

He strode to her in three steps, falling to his knees as he gripped her thighs, ensuring she couldn't move away from him. He shook with relief, "You didn't get on the plane."

"Tried to get myself to move but couldn't," Sarah whispered. Her big chocolate eyes filled with such uncertainty, with fear, stared straight into his equally apprehensive sapphires, "How are we going to do this?"

"Together, babe. We do this together." Connor whispered back because it was the only answer that he was sure of- whatever they decided to do then they would do it together.

"Connor?"

"Yeah?"

"Please don't call me babe or baby for a while."

He arched a brow and nodded.

That was fair.